This TNT episode explores how process theology and radical theology (the 'death of God' tradition) provide frameworks for understanding faith that embrace uncertainty, suffering, and the ongoing transformation of believers. Bo and Josh discuss how these theological perspectives help Christians navigate existential crises, maintain faith through difficult circumstances, and understand that even when traditional doctrines feel inadequate, the experiential presence of Holy Spirit remains a sustaining reality. The conversation emphasizes that faith involves active participation and response to divine call rather than passive belief, and that the body of Christ offers a transformative community that transcends traditional religious boundaries.
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I'm Unsinkable. I'm Already Dead: A TNT on Doubt, Faith, and the Galilean Vision
Added:What is heat?
Heat up What is up theology nerds?
This is Trip and I'm here not just with J Patty on the bottom from Rethinking Faith, but the man >> in the closed down bar lobby, >> the bow daddy.
>> Hey, how are you? I got permission to sit in the uh dark end of the bar in this hotel lobby because it's 7 a.m.
here and I didn't want to wake up my neighbors with a rowdy TNT.
>> Yeah. Not everyone not You have to you have to give consent before you hear the >> the tones of the Bodaddy getting married.
>> That's true. And the other thing is I heard them laughing quite loud last night and I thought, "Oh, these walls aren't very thick, so I needed to come up with an alternative plan."
>> Well, it worked.
>> It worked.
>> So, what are you up to though, Bo?
>> I'm at annual conference. So, for those of us who are Methodists, every year we get together with our uh clergy colleagues and an equal representation of lay people. And so, uh, it's a, you know, it's a fun gathering and I I always learn a lot. I'm always humbled to be around, you guys may not know this, but, uh, I'm not really a true believer. I'm too um, like I've read too much postmodern philosophy and, uh, French theorists and other such things. So, I do my best. I mean, I really do try.
Josh, what are you holding up?
>> Resurrecting the death of God. You mentioned that and so I'm reading it currently. And >> there you go.
>> I'm trying to relate.
>> You're mirrored, so I couldn't read the title backwards.
>> Oh, I should fix that.
>> Anyway, I I always am humbled to be around um people who are so sincere in their faith and so diligent and authentic in their ministries. It really for me is a reset sort of every year to do a heart check and uh to make sure that I am bringing my best internal posture to my vocation. It's a really it's actually a good thing.
A now you know what's funny is everyone that listens to this has gotten like regular updates about all the stuff you're doing.
>> Yeah.
And like you being the one that like needed the hard update compared to like what actual kind of engagement occurs in most congregate like they don't invent the holy rollers ministry though.
>> Uh you can rebuild lots of bikes for people. I mean, you pioneered new digital ministry by figuring out how the local radio station's AI uh could could discover about your community center or community gathering and y'all packed the place out. I mean, just think of all you've done this year, but I'm >> well, you know, you you're probably warming other people's hearts as well.
>> I appreciate that. But I'll give you an example. You and I think you both are probably the same way as well. like in our opening worship service, you know, the first evening, I'm bored out of my mind. I'm just and and I don't know if it's an ADHD thing or here's my theory.
I have so much energy in the cells of my body, right? Like just the animated caffeinated um self that I am. And I'm sitting there and I think because my both my parents died young, I am constantly aware like as I sit there for an hour and a half, I I'm just getting older. Like I'm just sitting here aging. I should go do something. And so I end up leaving a lot like I gota I don't know. I gotta go. I gotta go. That's like my constant >> You're consciously thinking about your own aging.
Oh, I think of it in the first 10 minutes of every morning, right? Where you get up and then you're like, "Why is my lower back feel like I just worked out? I was sleeping."
>> Did someone punch me in the kidney?
>> You look at your watch, you're like, "Did I ram it up enough?
>> What's going on?"
>> Hey, just out of curiosity for you two, what's your favorite part of travel and your least favorite part of travel?
>> Ooh.
Well, I just got back from, you know, a weekend in Minneapolis where I taught the class and stuff we talked about last week and got to >> hang out with um Josh and Emily. Josh >> who edits the podcast, not that Josh, >> different Josh >> and Emily and their baby Davey who's she's like six months old and uh got to hang out with Tony and um Andy Root and stuff. So, like my favorite part of traveling is when I see friends I normally always see on the internet.
>> Yeah.
>> In person.
>> Uh if they have >> a infant or a child that will enjoy my presence, then it just kind of goes up.
>> Yeah.
>> So, >> and you like babies, too.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Especially when you don't have to take them home, which is the best part about the youngest that will live with me is nine.
He'll be 10 next year.
>> And there's no reset buttons allowed in this house.
>> Not till grand hits.
>> That's the only perk of getting married.
The, you know, true love waits right till you get married at 20. Then you have kids early and all your friends are running around with like adult job money but no offspring doing fun stuff. Alicia and I got plants. Ours are going to be gone.
>> That's funny.
>> All of our friends that are going to be like middle school? What is that? I'm going be like I remembered it was it was something I I only have the good memories at this point. We're going to go see our oh used to be middle schoolers in Europe together cuz they're adults. Yeah. and taunt all those late baby heaven millennials.
>> So CJ and I are going on our 33rd year of marriage this summer and we never had our own kids and we always planned on adopting or you know we we've had nephews and nieces stay with us when they were in transition or whatever. But it's weird. My Facebook stream uh feed is weird because all my friends from college and even high school, they're like, "Kids are graduating right now."
And they're becoming grandparents and I still feel like a youth pastor who uh doesn't have my own kids. It's weird.
>> I had I had an existential crisis the other day. Um I Well, so I don't have any kids. I'm living that dink life. Um, out of necessity. I um out of necessity.
>> No kids, man. That's what I'm talking about.
>> Thank you for breaking it down for those at home. Dink. Yeah. Um, but I went over to my parents uh because a a friend was visiting, a family friend from Brazil was visiting and uh there was a kid there named Eli who I held as an infant and I remember doing this and then he drove me around in my car and while that was happening I was like lo like losing my mind having an existential crisis. I got back and I talked to his mom and I was like, "Yo, Eli just drove me in my own car and I was a baby. Uh, I wasn't prepared for it." So, I can't imagine how you you guys must feel really old, you know?
>> Yep. Feeling old.
>> Josh, when did you graduate high school?
>> Uh, 2012.
>> Yeah. Uh, here's why I asked this boat.
They at some point I can't remember what what it was but Josh asked me like oh do you ever talk to so and so and I was like yeah they've been on the podcast like three times like they were on in ' 08 and and I named off things and Josh was like yeah I was still in youth group Josh wait you know what's interesting I was uh doing my doctoral work from 2010 to 2016 I was a youth pastor so you could have been in my youth group.
>> I could have been. Yeah. Yeah. I graduated college in 2016.
>> That is amazing.
>> Yeah.
>> Wow. So, my least favorite part of travel >> I do get tired of living out of the suitcase with like like g you have a grocery bag cuz you went to the grocery store and you got your toiletries and it feels very like disheveled and um that gets old after a while to me. At first, it's sort of novel and fun, but after a while, you're like, I either need to come up with a better system or I got to go home.
I I'm feeling very disorganized. I have to move hotels today. I don't know. I think there's a big soccer tournament in Boise that starts today.
>> And I like I literally couldn't even find a campground to stay in or and in this hotel I could only get Wednesday and Thursday night. So I have to move hotels today and I'm feeling like this weird anxiety. It showed up in my dreams last night like I was entangled in all of the like the cords from my camping gear. And I know I know I was probably internally processing this whole u anxiety of of trying to move my disheveled mess.
Dude, I uh I have some things going on in life that um you two know about, but you know, they'll stay in the background. But I I have this reoccurring dream where like there's a ton of spiders everywhere. like no matter where I go, they're in my house, they're in my shoes, I can't get rid of them. And I hate spiders, so it freaks me out. But uh I was talking to my friend yesterday and they're like, "Oh, well, you should like look up what spiders mean in a dream." And I was like, "That's dumb." Like I don't, you know, whatever. But I then I did and it was like it was like number one feeling overwhelmed by many small. House and dreams often represents your inner life, sense of self-proportional world.
Spiders throughout the house symbolize problems, anxieties, obligations, or unresolved issues that seem to be spreading into every area of your life.
>> This is hilarious.
>> Oh, >> I will have to send you a screenshot of the other five because they're all >> uncomfortably accurate.
>> Bullet point for each leg.
>> Yeah, right. Oh my >> eight legs represents a different uh anxiety. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
>> I in the I I every time I read through Lord of the Rings, she loves layer creeps me up. N that's the big >> uh spider Josh and >> um I will say that's one of the other things that happens when I travel is on the plane unless I have to grade papers I read books I enjoy like Lord of the Rings and in the past I started it again whatever like three or four weeks ago remember when Elgen whenever that was >> and I'm I'm already almost done and I was reading on a late night flight >> the encounter with Sheilob the giant spider and >> oh it creeped me out. I had a nasty Sheilob dream and but I wasn't Sam or Frodo. I was that uh orc that was just had gotten tagged and was just like left up in there that they found. Cuz here's why I think the dream happened. I'd never really paid attention to this. Normally, I'm just like, "Oh, come on, Frodo. You're not dead yet." You know, um the the Shadrach and Gorchack having their little conversation and they talk about this one guy that just went missing and they just found him in Sheilam's lair. You know, he'd gotten tagged and all strung up on the thing, but he wasn't dead yet.
But they were like, "Yeah, we didn't."
It was her friend. They were like, "Yeah, but you we didn't want to take it from old Sheila. don't need her getting upset. And I just thought like why why are you gonna leave your boy alive coming too after being drugged up and tied up in a in a like you could cut him free and I'm like why why we got to hate on the orcs? They could they could be friends and just on the wrong side. But then my dream it was just like all these people just that everyone in my life were orcs and they were just like >> trip it's not personal. I just we don't want to mess with she loves layer.
>> Dude, you should Google what how somebody would interpret that dream.
>> No, I'm not going to Google it. We've already got Josh pioneered that and I say no pursuit. Josh, have you ever heard Trip talk about his dreams before?
>> Oh, yeah. They're crazy, >> right? He like whatever he reads before he goes to bed, he he like processes in his dream state.
>> Yeah, that's really cool. I So, I used to be able to when I used to have to write sermons on a regular basis, it would stress me out so much that like I could I could figure things out in my sleep and then wake up and like, you know, bang some things.
>> Whoa. But I can't the like processing or trip will be like, "Oh, last night I had a dream that I was talking to Alfred North Whitehead." Yeah. And also Jack Puto and Martin Luther King Jr. And here's a 45minute Substack article that I just >> poured out of my head that's brilliant.
I'm like, how the >> Yeah. No, it's weird. One time he met he met an author on a plane and he creeped out this famous author by saying, "Do you know I I have a imaginary conversations with you in my dreams."
>> Bo, you know who that was, right?
>> I do.
>> Okay. I And are you waiting to tell that story to them in person in front of an audience?
>> Yes, >> I thought so.
I was like, for a second I thought he forgot.
I'm not giving him the answer. And then I thought, no, he's thought about this and he plans on using it at theology beer camp. Hey, I want to tell you guys about something cool I get to do this afternoon. I got a call about two weeks ago and they asked me to organize a contemporary worship service for uh Friday afternoon.
So, I'll give you the the highlight and the low light of planning this thing.
So, the highlight is well, I should say the All right, here's the low light.
After I agreed and I had a brilliant brainstorming session where I felt the spirits leading about like what to do, then they sent me all the details. And this thing was basically pre-planned already and I've had to modify the heck out of it to make it a contemporary worship service. But the theme they gave me and you I if you know me at all you're going to enjoy this is reflect repent repair as bod daddy catnip and we know Josh likes ree it's the name of his podcast rethinking faith >> I hate theological projects that start with re so much I like anyway um I mean if they >> well what about what about if you just start sticking owl on the name of doctrines. It just was triggering to some people.
>> If they had thrown in reform, I would have just peed my pants. It's I I couldn't have handled it. So, um so that's the low light is like all the stuff they sent me that I have to work in. And I so my what I've decided to do is I'm I'm just going to so I did I did something classically bo in the planning meeting Wednesday afternoon. I could tell that they were stressed about the Wednesday ordination.
No, no, the Thursday ordination meeting and the Friday retirement um ceremony and that people were really worried because these services in the cathedral in the sanctuary have a lot of moving parts. So, I just said, "Hey, you know what? I got this contemporary worship service. If you guys just want to give it to me, I'll run the whole thing. you don't even you could put all your energy into Thursday and Saturday, you don't even have to think about Friday. And everyone said, "Oh, that would be a huge relief." And so they just handed it to me. So I didn't have to run my ideas past anyone. I'm so excited about that move. Anyway, my plan is to stage an emergency experiential um interactive gathering and then afterwards somebody's going to say to me, "Hey, you didn't check all the boxes of the stuff that we sent you." And my plan is to say to them, "Oh, I'm sorry. I you asked me to plan a contemporary worship service, but then you sent me the script of a teleathon."
And so that's >> you could say that you you switched from reform to uniform.
>> I switched the prefix.
What were the other three words, Bo?
>> It's re reflect, repent, repair.
>> Because it's Junth.
>> Yeah. No, I I understand the logic.
>> Okay.
It's Yeah, >> which is fine, but then don't h I won't get into it, dude. The amount of emails that I have received of stuff I'm supposed to squeeze into this service.
It really does help me understand why our lurggical gatherings are so boring.
the the because the number of agendas that get sent in is like and you have to do this. Oh, and also representation and you have to and we need to include this group and there has to be an announcement about this and somebody needs to say like this is how the offering is going to be taken up and this is what the offering is going to the theological fund and blah blah blah and it's like you can just bog you can bog this thing down so much that it won't be meaningful. I mean that's my humble estimation.
>> Yes.
Okay. I just so everyone knows I couldn't remember why I had texted Josh and said can you join Bo and I and so >> I don't even know. I know. No, no, no.
But see, there was a reason and I'd left myself a note that said check with Josh for TNT. And that's because two weeks ago, I got an email from um Jennifer, who's a Substack person, and she said, "I never get to do um like I can't join live, >> but I have questions that I thought I keep wanting to stick in the chat." So, here are random questions that have come up from previous TNTs and they're numbered. So, I thought we could just take turns picking numbers and have fun. And they're and that was as far as I got other than and it was like, oh, how have y'all changed on this or this? So, then I thought, we need someone who will tell us if our answers suck or not and ask follow-ups on Jennifer's behalf.
And I was like, "Oh, it'd be funny to get Josh to do it." So, that was the idea now that I now that I found the email.
>> Can you forward me the questions?
>> Yes. Yes. But, uh, hold on. I'm going to cut and paste these suckers. Give me a second.
>> Cool.
>> So, now now you can say whatever you want, Bo.
>> So, until Trip mentioned that people send in questions, I forgot to turn on my chat and so I just opened it. I love our chat so much. People are so funny.
>> There's quality stuff in here.
>> Oh my goodness. One of the things here, oh, it's way back was somebody was suggesting some other reword words. For instance, reject Lori and um and then get behind me. Jesus says, I mean, they could be reparations. That's an RE word.
And the church could take responsibility for reimagining a better society. But I love when people put parenthesis around the re. I use slashes a lot because I've read uh you know post structural stuff but >> yeah to rebrand Bo that's a get behind me Jesus also said that >> very creative and clever snarky people in our chat >> the uh question this is something I'm I'm interested in because what's the y'all are like what how far apart because you could have been his youth minister I would have been as youth minister like end like end of >> Mhm.
>> my time as youth minister. Both could have had Josh for middle school.
>> Yeah.
>> Um but y'all both started in much more conservative parts of the church.
>> Yeah. And um one of a couple weeks ago when we were talking about it when Tim was on here, one of the things I found fascinating was just even how different that same world was right when you were entering ministry and stuff, Bo. That's right.
>> And when your questions, changes ran up against stuff. Yes.
>> And Josh's.
>> So maybe that'd be a good way. I realize we have not introduced Josh as well for people on Substack wanted me to tell.
They were like, "Who's Josh?" And I'm like, "Oh jeez. because it's not like if Bo and I introduce ourselves every week and then I just assume if we know someone everyone does. That would be a fun way of introducing Josh and I'm going to cut and paste these things and send them to Josh.
>> No, that's good.
>> Can I since you guys did the whole emergency thing, can I tell you an emergency kind of idea that I had that I think it's just too late, but I think it would still be cool.
>> Yeah. So, I well, as you know, I used to brew uh beer professionally. And when I still did that, I had this idea where like imagine a church that is also a brewery like during the week um and maybe like a coffee roaster or something for in the morning. But here's the catch. It would be community focused.
So, like one cool thing is on Sunday you could have a beer during church. That sounds fun. Like, you know, home, you know, or theology beer camp, but every Sunday. Um, but as like the community piece, like imagine, you know, this month our PSNER, all of the proceeds if you buy the Pzner goes to uh the homeless shelter down the street, like this partner. And so you always have these kind of like community focused partners that different um beers would like support and then one of them would just be like the like house church beer.
So like any proceeds from this one goes directly back to the church. Um, so it' be like this very community focused space. Then you could host like, you know, make it an event space as well, so people could uh enjoy it and all this kind of stuff, but then it could also serve as a church on Sundays. Um, I thought that would be fun, but I I don't think, >> you know, maybe during the emergent era something like that could be tried. I don't know if if it would vibe today or not.
>> No, I think it has real merit. And let me tell you why. So up until three years ago when I was appointed to southern Idaho, my entire ministry career had been very worship centric. When I was a church planter in New York, when I helped plant a church out in Olympia, Washington, when I started helped start the loft down in LA, and then the renovation project that I did with um Vermont Hills, my entire ministerial uh history was very worship ccentric.
This move to southern Idaho has asked me to sort of reinvent myself and I have entered into the nonprofit world in a way I've never interacted with before and I am learning so much. So, not only do we have 501c3s that we share the building with, but I've joined Kowanas cuz Southern Idaho is about 20 years behind. Like everything is still on Facebook. My favorite bike shop doesn't even have its own website. Everyone just has a Facebook page. My wife's butician.
You make your appointments on Facebook.
Like there's no Meetup. There's no like it's not about websites. It's about Facebook. So stepping back a little bit and and then joining a group like Kowanas and working with nonprofits, I am learning so much. And one of the things I'm figuring out is if you have an institutional church, okay, there are two advantages to being a hybrid like you're talking about. One is you have a brickandmortar space, right? So you're not you're not paying rent overhead. And the second thing is you have a built-in volunteer base >> and people want to participate in something doing good in the world. So when you have for us a a weekly meal, free meal, uh groceries, right, for the pantry, clothing for the closet and the bikes. So that's their ecosystem on the first floor. People will come out of the woodwork. People who don't even like they're not a part of your church. They may not even be believers or anything, but they will financially support something that does good in the world.
And the more creative you get as far as like if there's a a trade-off like buying a let's say a holy pzner and right but people are generous and they want their money to go to good and they'll volunteer you know not like hours and hours a week but if you stage an event like our party in the park or cooking for the meal people will bring their kids, right? And they'll volunteer like their when their family comes in from out of town, they'll say, "Just so you know, on Sunday morning, we're going we're going to cook at the kitchen." And so you'll get guests that come to volunteer. So I think an idea like you're talking about, which is a hybrid.
It has a profit making side, but it goes to uh charitable causes. could be self- sustaining because people are looking for creative ways both to serve and to give. So, I think it could work. Man, you know, I I I wrote this uh proposal for a postmodern abbey like right around the time we started the podcast and that was one of the things in it. And the whole goal was that it would be like starting a church but also like an outpost for theological education where it's a small business like a abbey style you know funded abbey style where people would go essentially to divinity school and graduate debtree learn how to start like brewery tap room run it you keep the hours and make it a community space right so it's an alternative form of a faith community and so like it can host all sorts of different religious and spiritual gatherings and things but it's the like the format is like oh these are the ordained people they also just run the abbey and that's the um uh so you don't have it utterly dependent on gifts and stuff and then make such you could have it where such a high percentage of anything anyone gives goes out and they also know it's if they give they're having these students graduate debtree to be able to do something like that and not take a job at whatever church can pay off their student loans and stuff like that.
>> Um, >> that's good.
>> And because I've the other side of it is think of when you have long-term churches, especially in places with movement. Bo and I both experienced this in Los Angeles. It's really hard where if that one-third of the congregation are the ones that never move and leave >> to connect with the changing shape of a the neighborhood, >> you can get class and race shifts. You can get a place where there's lots of itiner itinerant people like Los Angeles. You live there for a certain number of years and leave. And think of how many people never feel like they get to be a part of the community because all the churches that are big enough to have the resources for like kids and family have a third of the congregation that's there for their fourth generation and everyone else is just in a life situation. You aren't doing that >> and so they don't get input and stuff.
Well, if it's if the long-timers are actually just committed to the well-being of the space hosting, then different things can start and end in their own season. And the things that are long-term are just the praying in the hours which anyone can join. And you know, obviously you do it in a way where it's not like off-putting, >> uh, but more of like invitational and and a bar where half the half the people attending it had pastoral care and counseling and can connect you with c like counseling resources and stuff like that seems like it could be a net a net positive.
>> Josh, I have an idea for trip that I haven't been able to sell them on yet.
Okay.
>> So, I I figured out that as Methodists, not only do we close a lot, a a lot of congregations, we actually have a phrase for it, that they've reached their faithful conclusion. That's what we say, right? We >> very nice.
>> We code it. But then there are empty buildings. And also, we're going through a thing called disaffiliation where churches that aren't open and affirming are buying their way out. And some of them leave behind a building. So I want trip to get one of these empty buildings in what do you call that triangle? The Duke, Wake Forest, North Carolina triangle. Research.
>> Yeah, research triangle is Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill and then the four ACC schools is Tobacco Road.
>> Okay. So, I want him to get one of these empty buildings and and make it into an event space so he could host all of his homebrewed conversations there, but also rent it out to other groups, including if somebody wanted to start um a more casual church, like a an actual congregation. and by by you using building usage fees both for the home brerew events and for alternative site events that I actually think that he could it would be a sustainable model and he would have his own facility as an event center.
>> I like it. I >> He doesn't have a vision for it though.
I I just feel like that that would obligate me to start going to meetings.
This is this is my homebrew meeting theology throwdown.
>> No, I think that planning >> Josh and I both went from having staff church meetings on your calendar to not and >> this is true. It feels pretty good to not. But you know how many things I miss about ministry? Like it's significant.
If someone was like, "We don't have any money, so we're just going to give you a little bit that you can have, but we're just going to put you in charge of something, but you don't have to come to meetings." And uh the once a month the senior minister will tell us what they want you to do.
Then I'll be like, "Great. Then I'm going to do the people stuff."
>> You're like, "Oh, do a disciplehip group. Oh, do this." Fine. fine. It's at some church council meetings. I don't need any help believing in the depravity of our species. And I swear like what's up, you know, and you know this feeling. I'm not I don't want to judge everyone that signs up for it cuz someone has to. But I've known some amazing people and then you're so excited they're being nominated for leadership and then I realize I did not know them because somehow I'm getting on church council.
It just it's it's they got bored. You know, you're the mighty son of Dondor, heir of the steward, and then that rings up in that business, and you're just like, I have thoughts. And you're like, you did not have any of these thoughts for the last 10 years. Where are these thoughts coming from? And you know who else is in the room? You know how many meetings I'm going to have because you said this.
>> Oh, no.
So, I think planning beer camp occupies enough of both of your year that you don't need a lot else uh going on. I mean, the amount of work behind the scenes that you guys put in to pull off that event, that's like um you know, that's a part-time job in itself.
>> Well, it's a it's a part-time job for like seven people.
>> Yeah, right. I was going to say like literally literally that is an accurate description.
>> Yeah.
>> In the most like like legitimate literal sense. Like you nailed it.
>> Josh, did you get those questions?
>> I did. Yeah.
>> 30 of them.
>> 30?
>> Yeah. We're gonna we're going to do all 30 of them, Bo. An hour on each one.
>> Lightning round.
>> I I there they aren't power ranked by what I thought or anything.
Yeah, there's >> and there were there were more of them than that. I just >> Yeah, there's there's a bunch. So, how do you want me to go about doing this?
Do you want to do where like you said, you guys pick a random number and then that's the question?
>> Um, >> if we want or you can just pretend whatever number Bose says is the question you wanted to ask.
>> Oh, that's a good point. All right. I won't tell the people which one I'm doing.
>> Yeah. So, if it is a solid question that he gives, you can do it. Okay. All right. All right. But what one through 30, dude. All right. We always start with eight. It's the number of newness.
>> Oo, that Okay, this you actually did pick a good one. What's a prayer that you have prayed that got answered in a way that still unsettles you?
>> So, you prayed for something and then you were like, "Okay, maybe not.
because I have a charismatic background.
I I mean I truly deeply love the presence of God's spirit in my life.
That divine presence of Holy Spirit is the reason I still keep it this at all. The problem with Holy Spirit is that she likes to clean house >> and she's always working to unclutter and uh sanitize the the stuff you you try and hide and keep under the sink and hidden behind the fridge and opening myself to the leading of the spirit. It has been both the best part of my life and the most uncomfortable.
>> I I'm always coming under conviction for my like dude, my priorities are not I I'll just be honest. This is like a confession. My priorities aren't great.
And I I am far more into comfort than health. And you know, I don't use my time well and uh I say bad words a lot and all sorts of other stuff.
>> Have you listened to rethinking pain?
>> I No, I don't. I don't because it starts with re.
>> Yeah, I figured I'll do I'll rebrand it just for you.
Um yeah, so come Holy Spirit is a prayer that I have prayed and you know it's messed up my life pretty good. M >> I'm not who I I am so different than who I would be without Christ spirit living in me. But I'm nowhere near what Sophia would dream for me. It's really uncomfortable and a little embarrassing.
>> Dr. Fuller, >> the my brother has this line in one of his songs. something like I'm a little a little better than I could be, not nearly as good as I should be.
>> And uh but well, we'll see if it was very specific. I it was maybe a year or so ago, I I was like, I want to be like genuinely uncomfortable about something that demands I grow beyond it.
>> Oh no. Oh no. And I want to just officially regret the efficiency of the lure at generating opportunities for growth.
>> Come on, man. That's hilarious. Why would you do that?
>> Well, I thought, you know, I this was all setting up like thinking, oh, well, Elen's getting close to graduating. like I should start thinking I here's what what had kind of kicked it off and I told my mom and dad this the other day you know we're one of the big graduation things and I was like I remember when I was graduating thinking that y'all seemed like normal competent adults and I don't feel that way and my dad just kind of looked at me like yeah I think I think I'm still just faking it something like that like you don't ever really think like Oh, well, I got that. I'm glad I've got this figured out. And uh um well, let's just say there's there there are ways in which my uh lack of figured out has become increasingly transparent.
And also when you pray things like that and you put it in your prayer journal it then when you go back to it and they're like about that could we go like halfsies like you know I like when I said transparently clear so that I was uncomfortable and called to growth what I meant was something different I don't know what >> but not this.
Oh. Oh. Well, >> speaking at >> least I got at least I get along with the chickens.
>> So, in our Methodist system to move from where I currently am, I'm called a licensed local pastor. And my license is only good for a year. I have to renew it every year. It's not guaranteed. That's that's true statement. By the way, my backup plan is to move to North Carolina and start an event center um in an old Methodist empty building. That's my backup plan.
>> Then we can be neighbors.
>> Yep.
>> Okay. Then I'm Look, I told you I'm looking down for a place to volunteer 10 to 15 hours of work that that sets me up for ministerial encounters.
>> Josh, you want to run the brewery side of it?
>> Yeah. I'm just saying I'm that's it.
Sounds like I know that you fix things up though.
>> I know you like to still go to meetings.
>> I would love to empower you to do all of that.
>> It is my backup plan. I'm being serious.
Anyway, so >> well, you know, Elgen left so that we got an extra room here.
>> That's what I'm talking about.
>> Yeah.
So um to move from being a licensed local pastor, I I only have two more classes in my course of study and then I can apply to be an associated member.
But in order to do that, I have to answer a series of questions both to the board of ordained ministry and then publicly uh to get this ordination. And every year when these questions are asked of the candidates, I mean, so guys, think about this. Think about where you'd have to be in order to answer these questions. Okay. Uh there's seven of them.
>> Josh, uh this is going to be triggering for you. I'm just giving a heads up as to uh >> so I should answer all seven questions.
>> Yeah. Josh, now that you you asked us one question on Jennifer's behalf, and now Bo has seven for you specifically.
>> Josh, let's play a game. You're you're you've come before the board of ordained ministry and here are the questions.
Have you faith in Christ? Sure.
No, >> he's starting off strong here. All right.
>> Are you going on to perfection?
>> O, I feel like I'm I'm failing currently, but >> there is a a possible world where I continue if it's an ongoing process of becoming I am I am getting there.
>> Like Kirkagard, I am becoming a Christian.
>> Oh, look at that Bo. I feel like that's a That's a >> that is a truthful yet not compromising your integrity answer >> and I would pass that.
>> Question three. Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?
>> As a Methodist, do you have to say yes to that?
>> Yes.
>> Yeah. Because Yeah. Okay.
Oh, what if Josh what if you said what if you said the being made perfect in this life is that in the concretence of every event you it is received into the divine life judged and redeemed and your perfected life meets you as an invitation towards perfection in each moment.
>> That's Marjorie Suhak's answer and that's why she would say >> grace. Yeah.
>> Yes. Yeah.
>> All right even.
>> So we're getting into the deep end of the pool. Are you ready?
>> Yeah.
>> After full examination, do you believe that our doctrines are in harmony with the holy scriptures?
>> I mean, >> harmony.
>> Yeah, harmon harmony is good. Uh they are in conversation.
>> Oh, this is great. They are they are a helpful and faithful interpretation given one's throness in the world as a Methodist.
>> You're doing very well at this >> man. Maybe we maybe we can get Josh ordained Methodist right now.
>> All right, there's two more question.
>> That's what they need. The guy that has to update it every year and the Baptist.
See, we ordain almost anything. So, >> we have two more questions. Do you approve our church government and polity?
>> Uh, when functioning properly in service of love in the direction of Christ, I approve of it.
>> This is You're doing so good. I'm going to copy all your answers.
Here's the last one. Are you in debt so as to embarrass you in your work?
>> Yes.
>> Right. Me, too. Me, too.
>> Correct. Let me tell you just how indebt I am.
Uh, student loans.
>> I always like to point out I'm in debt because I went to a Methodist school.
>> That's a good answer. Yeah.
I Yeah. I'm in debt because I graduated college, got married immediately, took a job that necessitated fundraising the entirety of my salary >> for the Lord.
>> For the Lord.
>> Oh. And then I moved to from Maryland to Florida to take my first pastoral job, which I found out after the fact. They docked 20 G's off my salary because they were like, "Oh, this kid's young. He's dumb. He's not going to know any better.
He's going from fundraising to we're guaranteeing him money." So, I didn't make any money there. Then I left and went to a Methodist congregation and made even less money.
And then I moved back from Florida to Maryland. Um, got paid a reasonable salary at a at a church that I actually really liked. Shout out Senica Creek.
Um, but like then I quit doing that.
Became a brewer. Really didn't make any money again.
>> Oh.
>> And I have just been I've been living in that ever since. Like Yeah. That's probably one of the most one of my most embarrassing aspects of my own life that I like feel the worst about is my lack of ability to manage money in anything that resembles being an adult or responsible.
>> But I think it's because I've been in a hole my entire life and I've never been able to get out.
>> Interesting. You also have a book buying problem.
>> Yeah, >> that's what the podcast is for to get them for free.
>> That's also true. the I do get most of my books for free these days unless they're ones that are like, you know, I'm reading and then I'm like, "Oh, this book came out 40 years ago and it's $3 on Amazon because it's not in print anymore."
>> Tough to turn down.
>> Yeah.
>> But you know, you know, Bo Josh has a new job they started this month.
>> I do.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Yeah. I uh I work for the Well, it's currently called the Center for Crisptogenesis. Perhaps you've heard of Eliao. Um, so I work with Elilia now, which is super cool. I'm the uh the director of creative content um and communications at the Center for Cryptogenesis, but we're going through a big rebrand right now and we're about to be called the World >> Rebrand.
We're changing our name uh to the World Institute for Science, Religion, and Culture.
>> Oh, wow.
>> Yeah. and Elia is working on launching um a doctoral program out of the center that's going to be fully fully accredited um in connection. There's a couple different universities that we're looking at partnering with. Um so it's pretty cool. It's been neat. I uh I'm going to go have lunch with her on Thursday, uh which I'm really excited about. And um yeah, I went from being like a fan to now I have like standing weekly meetings and Ilia texts me. It's like this weird uh this weird space, but uh it's pretty cool.
>> She was in Germany last week.
>> Yeah.
>> And uh you know at a beer garden and you know how in Germany beer gardens like they have different sized glasses than mere Americans.
And Ilia sends a picture in just an email with a picture of her giant beard and me.
I was like, "Best reference I ever wrote leads to Ilia sending me beer pics."
Did you would you have thought like I got a beer pick from a nun as like even an option in life?
>> Solid one. I was like, man, I arrived.
>> Yeah, that's a vote of confidence.
>> We got to pick a new number, but we're going to at least get three of these.
>> All right, let's let's jump to 11.
>> Oh, that's another good one. What's the uh what's the closest you've come to walking away from it all? And what has kept you in the room?
>> This is a live question for me.
is and you can decide the all here, Josh. What's >> What's the all? Is it like vocational ministry or is it >> I think I'm reading it as like why are basically why are you still a Christian?
What like how close have you been to just being like this is all uh what is Trip's word? This is all a bunch of junk. Bump that. Uh and why why are you still around?
Well, I I don't know.
I've never had issues with God in that made me want to walk away.
>> I have had gez maybe like universal nonviolent love executed and given a perpetual future is still not compelling enough for our species. and we're going to screw that up. Like I've I've been depressed or sad or like utterly frustrated with whether or not it worked, you know, or like what good is it doing or whatnot. But like my own existential experience of the divine even when it I mean it's not like it waxes and waines but never like is anyone there has not been when I get in those situations I don't ask like is God I like more like shake a fist >> but I I know plenty of people who like the where is God becomes a is God question in palpable ways for them. And I think the earliest experience I had of that deep wrestling with evil and suffering was like a conglomerate of at the macro everything that happened after 9/11 and uh my grandmother's like in cancer experience and being with her through that and my first years as a minister and seeing tra like a a child die in a car wreck.
But like so I had all those kind of lining up and it maybe it was so significant that like I clang I I had like a clingingness to the presence of God when I had the most reasons.
So the leaving it all was much more the vi viability of the tradition not the Galilean vision at least for me.
>> Nice.
Um I went through a period where you know my mom had died. We we were adopting from uh China and we couldn't pass the physical home exam because um the chronic illness had gotten so bad for my wife. Um, I was struggling in my PhD program and one of my adviserss had left the school and I had to spend an extra year in my qualifying exams reinventing what I was going to do my calls on.
I was stuck at work because the loft had taken off and was becoming sort of its own viable congregation. but they wouldn't let me change my job description that I had originally been hired for as children, youth, and family minister.
Uh, we had somebody living with us because their spouse had committed adultery and left them. And like I had so much going on, I almost broke. I almost melted down. I was having like heart palpitations and anxiety attacks.
Um, and my father offered for any of us children who wanted to go to grief therapy, he would pay for it.
>> And I and I found a grief counselor and I started going to therapy and it was the best thing I did. I I'm not sure I would I'm not sure I would have made it without therapy. I needed I needed that. The irony, by the way, is that my dad paid for my therapy. But ironically, most of the time I ended up just talking about my dad and my relationship to my dad. And I just thought it was so funny because he was paying for it. I But so I was essentially talking to my grandfather. My therapist was like a grandfather about my father and it was just a very very funny moment in my life. But um yeah, on every front life was not going great and I almost broke.
But um it actually you know even when like if you so for me even if you believe in the death of God right or the sort of the antiquated notion of the doctrines we've been handed even if you don't buy into that anymore and you study the historical Jesus and you're not convinced about this second person of the trinity formulation and the king of the universe messianic stuff. And even if you just think Jesus was like a wandering sage who caused trouble for the authorities, right? The one thing I can never get away from is the presence of Holy Spirit >> and that abiding presence in my life.
Like even if I walked away from everything else, from ministry, from church, from faith, you know, in a formalized institutional doctrinal way, I would still have a relationship with spirit.
>> And so, um, even when life was as tough as I can possibly imagine it, you know, the one good thing that came out of that, if I can just say, is that I found out that I'm unsinkable.
Because um >> like you float.
>> I float.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. And it's a great thing to know about yourself because and I'm being serious in the 10 years since then, >> literally anything that comes up, no matter how heavy it feels or how much it hurts at the time, >> I know I'm going to bounce back.
>> I'm unsinkable. And so that's a nice thing to know. So what I tell people is you can't kill me. I'm already dead.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. I'm undead. And so you, you know, if you talk about second life, like for me being resurrected in Christ or whatever, however you frame it, it is good to know that I've made it through the worst. And so like I have nothing left to lose.
There's a freedom in being undead.
>> Yeah, I like it. that yeah that's good and also I mean to your you know I'm going through a similar thing that you were describing as like your own experience where like when it rains it pours kind of thing and so like in that moment I've been kind of glad that I already knew about like process thought open theism etc because if I was still into the whole like classical theism bit I'd be like man god freaking hates me >> so like luckily I don't have to do that but for me what actually like process thought really saved for me like a lot of the I guess like the the metaphysical picture is helpful. Um, and it's a big part why like I don't find atheism credible amongst some other things. Um, and I can't get away from spirit like you're saying Bo, but I actually I have found like radical theology, the death of God stuff like we were talking about.
Um, that animates me in a different way.
M >> um because like I think with connection to spirit and recognizing that there's still something deeper here and like not being able to fully name that kind of like you know I love Caputo's insistence language >> um speaks nicely to my like felt experience and I like can't get rid of that. And then, you know, I listen to uh so my buddy Jed, we do this bit called the Emojelicals together, which is just like on our Patreon exclusive stuff. Um he has a podcast called Church and Other Drugs, and he just had Trip on recently.
Uh cuz Jed is going to be at Beer Camp this year.
>> Okay.
>> And listening to it was so funny because Trip was like blowing Jed's mind. And like Jed was like, "I didn't realize that like Trip was like a Christian."
And I was like, "Yeah, dude. Trip is like one of the most Christian people that I know."
>> I think I saw you do a short on this.
>> Yeah. And like during that but during that conversation like here's again what keeps me around is like somehow in whatever way Trip and I've told you this before like Trip articulates the Galilean vision um or the gospel whatever language you want to speak it does something to me. It moves me.
>> And so like there was a part where I got like emotional listening to Trip talk to Jed and I was like >> what do I do with that? I can't deny my experiential reality. And so that's kind of even amongst all the [ __ ] and all of the nerd stuff that constantly lives in my head and screams and is like all of this is made up. There's something that I can't experientially escape and I'll God, grace, love, whatever.
You know, just to give a shout out to Caputo again, that idea that God doesn't exist, God insists, >> freed me up and especially when he pairs it with uh the name of God as an event.
>> Yes. It freed me up so much to not be bound by only the ways I had heard God talked about in the past, but to be able to hold them as one flower in a much bigger bouquet.
>> Mhm.
>> It was so liberating and so lifegiving.
And I I know that Mel Westfall calls it thin soup, but God, I love it. I love it. I Me, too. I sometimes when your tummyy's upset, the only soup you can have is thin soup.
>> Otherwise, you'll regret it and end up dehydrated.
>> But I think there's something to it as well because I think the the ethical demand that radical theology puts on you is significant. Like that's where I actually think process and radical share is that >> like the invitation of God or the lure of God, the insistence of God, whatever.
In process thought, you have to give in to the divine lore, participate with God for things to happen. Within radical thought, you have to actualize the divine. So either way, like you can't be passive uh in your faith.
>> You have like you it calls something out of you.
>> Um and then, you know, I don't know. I I like that >> when I hear people talk like this, there's something like internal to me that's just going nom just I'm go I'm eating it up. Nom nom nom nom nom.
>> Yeah. Well, we I just did a a nerdy two-hour conversation with Aaron Simmons on uh Levenos and like the whole idea of like the infinite responsibility to the face of the other deeply compelling. I also think that plays nicely with some radical thought. So, I was digging that too. Um, >> wow, that is some deep nerdy stuff.
>> Okay, one aside about that connection of process and radical there. Do you remember, Bo, when we had uh the three JC's at the American Academy of Religion? So, this is just Katherine Keller and Caputo and >> Cobb.
>> And uh we made these posters of John Cobb was getting his like beer, home brewed beer at the thing, right? And we made this poster by we I mean Jesse Tur um of this Cobb quote that like about God is the call forward in every moment.
You know something like it the call forward language, right? And Caputo was just like I don't understand what about that sentence I don't agree with. Right. And then Katherine, it's like, well, well, Jack, I think the real the real difference is that um we agree that God is always insisting. It's just John and I think, well, we can make it existing and maybe the one that keeps insisting wants to show up every once in a while, you know, like in this kind of playful way.
Right. But like that the that experience that both of them point you to >> is a sense that like you can't overcome uh where you find yourself, right? The past is showing up. So it limits uh whatever the horizon is. But both of them say something like, "Of all that meets you in this moment as possibilities, it's not vain to give yourself to what is most beautiful, good, true, adventurous, zesty, just like >> the the when you ask what is the what is where does faith show up? It's saying yes >> to the possibilities that are available to you where you find yourself." And for process people like you know that is the very structure of the cosmic becoming.
Um it is a it is a hermeneutical horizon in the radical the like in radical theology broadly. But like how the phenomenology of it like what the lived experience of the person of faith is they both share this kind of recognition that you can be distracted to what fidelity looks like in this moment. if you uh let the past overdetermine you or if you if you let the future be clouded out by utopian fantasies. And the most precious thing you have is something you get an opportunity to acknowledge in every moment. And that's the the little slither of agency that you have in a moment is the place in which you give the call of God a response.
And what that response looks like in this moment shapes what's being inherited in the next.
>> Mhm.
>> And like when I think of like you know the previous question of like leaving it behind I'm like yeah okay. So if I switch like what's a more beautiful way of narrating on days I don't know if any of it has traction with anything else in the whole world. I still think the world would be better off that if there's a community of people that transcend nation states, languages, and at the very heart of them, their identity told most beautifully is one where they are brought into the body of Christ. They are nourished at that table and they're invited to meet the coming of God in the face of every other. like whether or not that narrative is true or not is is just like that's a giggle question. Giggle g it makes you giggle if that's like the first question that comes to mind.
>> Um and I think that there's a sense where both traditions recognize like theology or the legitimation structure of any religion. It it should be it should be the energetic poetics that come on the way in which the tradition orients you and transforms you and so in different ages you have to art like you have to talk about what's getting itself done in the whole thing but that orientation and transformative engine is kind of like running beneath it and then we have to do theology and if you start holding beliefs from other times you can call back from the past and it might help you orient in that moment or be transformed in other times.
it closes you off to what the invitation of any moment is. Um, and so both process tradition and the radical theology tradition is like in a world that has been uh uh Protestantism on steroids where we think like what religion really is are these beliefs that come up. They both have different ways of going like beliefs come out of an actual encounter and fidelity is to that event.
>> And >> you know, and I have a whole book that says that that event both generated the expression of Jesus as the Christ and is part of what meets us. Like all of that metaphysical thing aside, like the thing that's compelling to me about Christianity is the other narratives, at least in the West, that invite us to uh interpret our past and define our future and orient ourselves for responsibility are ones that are so hijacked by uh narratives that do not think the face of the other. And the least of these, >> wow, >> demand accountability in whatever way we can measure in a moment.
>> If it's our economic narrative, if it's our nation's narrative, you start going through them. And you know, we have words for that theologically. They're called idols. And idols have always demanded sacrifice. And so like if you you know for Whitehead who did not have a christologology nearly as high as mine and probably wouldn't even know why you would ask that question but he did describe a universe where he thought engaging in this in the sciences and stuff that were changing that became utterly transfixed by the fact that from the beginning of our spaceime and whatever way that emerged or you know there's lots of cosmological debates but we can look back at least at a 13.8 billionyear story that that invitation generated the possibility space where we can forgive someone where we can not be claimed by our past where we can be the sight of something new coming into being when we you know uh let not our will but God's will you know anyway I'm not don't need to go into a whole sermon but >> that was great man So, um, two quick things. I don't always listen back to the TNT afterwards. I'm going to today, both for both for Josh's answers to the Methodist questions because I'm going to I'm going to copy and paste them and for Trip's saliloquay there, I'm going to go back and listen to this one. And I don't always do that. So, that's number one. Number two, Josh, at that event, he was talking about the American Academy of Religion in San Diego.
>> Yeah.
>> So much happened in that one gathering that I will never forget. For instance, we had to have two ballrooms and they took down the divider between them because we had so many people there. We got in trouble for bringing our own beer. We I mean like I got to talk with Khaled Keef Perry. Uh it was just so many great things happened. But the thing I will never forget is it was during that period I was talking to you about when I was sinking.
>> At one point in the event, Katherine Keller puts her hand on my back and says, "Bo, Jesus loves you." And it was so endearing and just so pastoral and caring. I just thought it was really funny. But I'll never forget that a world-class theologian had to assure me that Jesus loved me.
>> That's not good.
>> I dig it. I Well, to that point, I uh in my meeting with Elia yesterday, I got some rather kind and inspiring sisterly advice, as she called it.
>> Wow.
>> At the end of our meeting, which, you know, that's pretty cool. That's awesome.
>> Take that for granted. That way you could just tell your You're like, "Well, my nun told me."
>> That's right.
>> All right, Bo, pick another number.
>> 47.
>> Oh, I was actually looking at this one and I've been trying to think about it and I don't know that I have a good answer. So, maybe you guys will spark something for me. Um, what's a question that you're genu genuinely afraid to ask out loud and will you ask it now on the internet?
>> Oh my goodness, that's funny. Well, so I'll go I'll go big picture and then a smaller picture.
>> I thought you were going to say 24.
>> I switch. I'm calling an audible.
>> Yeah, this question. Um, I think so I'll go big picture and then a smaller picture. Big picture.
If it turns out that one of the other world religions is tr the truth is true, >> will I get into their good place? So if I'm a if I'm authentic and deliberate in my own faith tradition and it turns out that one of the other world religions is right, do I get to go in the good direction after this chapter of my mortal existence because I was authentic within my own faith tradition or so that's like a universalist, right? Um type idea or Yeah. So that's a big question that I think about is um like and I'll even I'll even go if Catholics or Calvinists or um Buddhists or Hindus or Mormons like I I wonder about that universalist question and uh but it's sort of an odd one to say out loud.
Yeah, that's good.
I um I don't know. I I have this thing like part of the reason that Calvinism freaks me out so much is because I'm convinced if Calvinism is true then I'm not elect because since my theology is like the opposite of Calvinism. Um I can't be elect because God if I was elect, God would have given me correct theology so I can correct relationship with him and I'm just not. So, I'm clearly >> What if you're just a demonstration of God's love?
>> Like, >> you're being redeemed nonetheless, and you've just been corrupted >> by >> Well, I'm taking a lot of people down with me then.
>> What was the other one, Bo?
>> Well, or you want me to do one while you decide if you're going to say it or not?
>> I am deciding whether I'm going to say it or not.
>> Okay. So I had two uh one uh one is the so there's this bit in um like Bonhaofer's ongoing struggle with uh with his relationship to the German country and people and he describes the anguish of praying for their defeat >> and like where he got to the point that the church had lost so much integrity. So both the state and the church had failed that the preservation of a fascist regime and an apostate church meant it the most faithful thing was to pray for the defeat of his country. And I've never like that's I think I would resist getting to that point rather aggressively.
So, like when you think of all the things that have been going on, not like specific to I mean Trump's like the expression of it currently, but there's so many elements of our nation state that are problematic and the role we play in the globe has just been kind of assumed by so many in the church that the post-war order, the world's better off with us in charge.
and whatever the point the US uh changes will be less than ideal experience for people in our country especially those on the bottom. So that one um like are you actually resisting God by not taking up that prayer bit? H.
So, my more personal one, when you have a partner who has debilitating chronic illnesses and you've already lost both your parents, it causes you to hold questions inside that make you make you uncomfortable that they're present to you.
And so I'll say it this way. If it turns out I was in a Truman Show type reality and everything was broadcast, how bad would it be?
Like, oh my. I know I laugh a lot and I have a gregarious personality, but I am so cynical and jaded and calloused in parts of me that I just like I wonder sometimes like all right would I disqualify myself?
So there's a lot of there's a lot of existential angst and um >> you had a nightmare after watching the Truman Show.
>> I did.
>> What if what if you found out years later that like on your deathbed they're like you've been a star of the show and you're like great. Well, it only ran three seasons but we didn't know how to tell you.
So, if people, you know, at like around Halloween time or people who like scary movies, they'll ask like, "What's your favorite horror movie?" It's The Truman Show.
>> Dude, >> I find it horrifying.
>> Oh my.
>> I mean, it is there, I think. But that's the thing, right? Like if all of us had our own internal thoughts >> like broadcasted to the world, I don't think anybody would be super down with that. In the same way that like >> Whoa, whoa, whoa. I can think of a few people.
>> Yep.
>> You say I don't think anyone with a marginally healthy sense of self would be down.
>> All right. All right. This is fair.
>> Good asterric. Yes.
>> I don't know. I just I think we could all get ourselves in trouble if our true thoughts were broadcasted to the world or like I don't know there's always those memes about like you know me and the boys in heaven with God going through our group chat and like you know you're in trouble or whatever. Like I think, you know, we like to I mean, for good reason, call people out for doing and saying stupid things, but then forget at the same time that like >> there's probably stuff that if it got out that like I texted my friend in a joke wouldn't look great.
>> Yeah.
>> Reality for everybody. And when we pretend it's not, it's stupid. Did did you see did you see Hunter Biden saying basically that in the replies where people were like losing their junk over like whatever the main Senate candidates like message board post from with his you know in the middle of PTSD and stuff and and he was like >> oh this is a great idea. I would love for you to uh just you know give us access to everything you've ever posted, texted and moved. Like just hand your phone over. We'll we'll make sure we get rid of all the inappropriate people in Washington. You know, no one's going to do that.
>> Wow.
>> Unless they might like let their kid via an app see what websites they go to.
>> Oh my.
>> Oh man. All right, Bo, pick another number. Let's go. Four. Oh, four.
>> All right. Well, this is uh this fits into kind of the processy bit. I have a feeling I know how both of you will answer this. Oh.
>> Um, does God experience time or is God watching the whole movie at once while we're stuck frame by frame?
>> Yes.
>> Nailed it.
But >> so I love this question but for a different reason, >> okay, >> than time. So I was told that truth is both universal and timeless.
And that's just not true. I have come to realize that it would be more accurate to say that it is located, it is mediated and that it is provisional.
So even if there is a god and that god is outside time like we just in our epistemic limitation wouldn't have access to that truth >> right except you know some people would argue through revelation right the bardians in the room >> yep I was just about to say that So this idea of when we talk about God and time, I find it as fascinating to hear people's thoughts about God as I do to hear their thoughts about time >> because to me both are as telling >> and erroneous.
The relative arrogance with which we talk about these two subjects for me exposes the folly of human rationality and reason.
>> Yeah.
>> Is that what you thought I was going to say?
>> No, it's not. I thought you were just going to agree with Trip. But I mean, you don't not agree with Trip. Uh, I just I for me it always it never made sense. Like even growing up when people were like, "Oh, God exists outside of time." Like I was always like, "Well, then don't you think like God you have a relationship with God?" And they're like, "Yeah." Like, "Well, how do you ever if you're temporal and God's not?
How do you relate to that?" And like that never made sense to me. And then you have to say weird things. If God is non-temporal, you have to say like God doesn't exist right now. That's I like that's strange to me. I don't know. Um, >> well, can I just say I I think it's interesting how theologians talk about the Christ event.
>> Yeah.
changing the nature of time or humans understanding of it or the human conception of it, the paradigm in native wisdom around the world perennially.
Time is cyclical, right? It's a circle shape. German theologians, Trippy, you can help me out here, had a real strong opinion that once once you had an incarnation that time became more linear and had a tell us.
So the way we understand and relate to time changed when Christianity came on the scene and thus the nature of being right this is where we end up with H highaidiger and trip you can help me with Hegel um the culmination of time the and I don't trip I don't know if you say peruseia or perosia what's your favorite pronunciation of that. But anyway, I find it fascinating that Christianity has a very different conception of time than native wisdoms.
>> Yeah. The I think most people date like the emergence of historical consciousness, which is I think what we're talking about, right? that there's a linear narrative to in the west the prophets and um and the really western philosophy after the Socratics like they both kind of end up influencing each other. Um but the and this is one of the features you know John Cobb in talking about the gifts of the Jewish and Christian tradition to the west is uh historical consciousness and it has like a like there two big elements. One of it is right like it when you have historical consciousness say the prophets like what you're doing in your history shapes uh what what comes to be right and it's you're not like on a track that's going to replay itself. And um and the one of the things that emerged from that is the recognition of of valuation that what happens in your history and in your moment and such has like it is a your own teological experience is part of a larger narrative and I think the reason it ends up emerging and then you know in modernity in the is partially because of the emergence of science and one seeing the large as we the more we know about the larger cosmic story. it it it you know there it would be hard to call it cyclical unless you're calling like spacetime cyclical you know like you could have like which I know some people will do like cosmic epochs um but at least within our particular spaceime the the growth expanse and kind of emergent complexity leads to a kind of historical consciousness right that that that we emerge as within in this larger story and in the religious space historical consciousness means a kind of responsibility for one's finitude in the time you show up. Um I do think the the movement and stuff of history there are uh and this would be like the errors of like the general progressive vision, right? That that that teological move through history is not in some way tethered to the collective agency of people, right? That it's just on this particular trajectory regardless. Um there you know I want to channel some of that uh the long slow defeat image in Tolken or uh like historical consciousness does not have to correlate to I like idealistic utopian trajectories. It can be it can also be expressed in the like nevertheless energy of how you use your own agency in your own moment. Um, but >> I think the for me the issue is God God is not a being in the way that we are a being. God is being. And therefore, you can't, you know, Pington used to say, if you ask the sun a question about waves, you'll get an answer that is about waves. And if you ask it about what was the other option Oh, I just lost my quote. Anyway, depending on what kind of question you ask, you'll get a different kind of answer. When we conceptualize of God as a being among beings or even the greatest of beings, we get distorted conceptions of time as well. So I just I think the whole the whole question is fascinating because it exposes so many other assumptions that we're making to even have the conversation. But can I just say one of the reasons I love this conversation and this might surprise you is because of the sacraments.
So for me I have come I come from a nonsacramental understanding. They were just symbols right? It's always bread. It's always juice. it and they're just that they're symbols that like remind us of a higher reality or what they represent, right?
They're symbols.
I have now moved in the last 20 years to what I call hypers sacramental understanding which is I don't just think that they are sacraments in the moment but that they reorient all time.
This is the like metaphysical to me.
They orient all time in that they don't just call back like an echo to the breaking of the bread that we read about in scripture when Jesus you know breaks the bread but that in the breaking it becomes the very song that it is calling back to that the song is sung again and in that sense it is a perpetual and perennial voice. It's not an echo of a voice. It becomes the voice again.
>> Ran, what's um Oh, uh, >> so we're not remembering if I can just >> Oh, yeah, cuz we know we don't want to re >> I hate the re. We're just membering. We are the members and we're membering.
>> Who's the French guy at Duke trip? What was his name?
>> John Luke Maran.
>> Yeah, Marian. And he has this whole like what does he call it? Saturated phenomena.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. That's what I was reminded of when you were talking though. Although I think uh I don't know if that connection actually makes sense but that's where my mind went >> uh is his saturated phenomena. But to your to your point though about the like the I guess the level of arrogance that we speak about God. I think about that often. Um because there's like a book project that I've been sitting on for a hot second and like the thing that keeps me from doing it is like that kind of level of arrogance bit because basically I would want to be like here's the Josh Patterson conception of God and why it doesn't suck. Like finding a god worthy of worship. Um, but like that that seems a bit arrogant to an extent, but I also feel like recognizing that like if we're doing constructive theology uh or theopoasis is probably how I'd prefer to talk about it, like God making, if you do that in fidelity to the tradition and not in spite of it, does that kind of like help free me from some of the arrogance to be, you know, to steal one of Trip's phrases like God has to be at least as nice as Jesus. So, if we're Christians and we're going to talk about a God who is love, is it too arrogant to say, "If God is love, this is what I think that God has to look like." Um, while recognizing like, "Okay, this is all poasis." Uh, you know what I mean? Like, that's where the arrogance >> comes up. So, this I I love this conversation so much. Let me tell you why. So if you're coming from say you're still using the evangelical framework that you inherited, you're just on the outside of it now, but the box is still in place, right?
>> So the inherited paradigms and and the epistemological certainties. So if you're just outside of that now, but the the box still exists, right? So people, you know, say they think outside the box, you're like, well, in your world there's still a box, right? So, but if you migrate to that thing that I said that your access to truth is located, >> mediated and provisional, >> then you have to say something in the moment, you even if you're saying today is Monday and I'm in the living room, even even though that won't be true tomorrow because it'll be Tuesday and you're in the dining room. Mhm.
>> But in that moment, you have to say something. It is your expression. Right?
So it's not with arrogance that you say it unless you say it. Okay? If you're just being a photo negative about you used to be, then that's that arrogance you're trying to avoid. But if you migrate entirely out of that epistemic certainty, then it's actually your both delight and obligation It's what I would say is this book insists that you write it.
>> Yeah. Nice.
>> So, Bo, >> yeah.
>> Um, your your little hypersacrementality bit.
>> Yeah.
>> Made me think of Whitehead's definition of religion and science in the modern world.
>> Okay. Okay.
>> Where he says, "Religion is the vision of something that stands beyond, behind, and within the passing flux of immediate things.
>> Something which is real yet waiting to be realized. Something which is a remote possibility, yet the greatest of present facts. Something that gives meaning to all that passes, yet eludes apprehension.
Something whose possession is the final good and yet is beyond all reach.
something which is the ultimate ideal and the hopeless quest.
And he he talks about it. He gives this definition, right? And then he starts to look at how the role it's played and kind of culture and history. And he says, "The fact of the religious vision and its history of persistent expansion is our ground for optimism. Apart from it, human life is a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a baguette of transient experience. Whoa. The power of God is the worship God inspires. The worship of God is not a rule of safety. It is an adventure of spirit, a flight after the unattainable.
The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure.
>> Wow.
Adventures in the spirit. That's where that comes from.
>> Yes.
>> Wow.
Ah, that was awesome. Now I have a third reason to go back and listen to this episode.
>> Well, there you go. That was a great quote. But I I like it because it's like yeah, you wouldn't not do all the things you do and like it makes sense why we have beliefs or he talks about the process of rationalization >> but think of the misplaced concreteness when you think it's not the engine of spirit like orientation and transformation. You think the energy >> is the piece of the iceberg that escapes in into the poetics of belief.
If you if you get fixated on that >> Yeah.
>> then you you're ignoring the whole like where the action is.
>> Yeah. So I love this so much. So the other implication for hypers sacramentality is that not only is when we are membering is that a holy moment? It actually it I I figured out I'm only three implications in but here's what I figured out.
that every table becomes sacred.
>> Every time I'm across table from somebody, that also is a holy moment. It is sacred.
And every cup becomes sacred. So whether it is water or coffee or ale, they all represent the beauty and divine potentiality of a moment. every cup becomes sacred. And I figured out that every day becomes sacred. There's not a holy day and ordinary days. They're all holy days.
And every body becomes sacred. For it bears the image of the divine and reflects to me something about that divine nature that I can't see without it.
So this hypers sacrementality for me transforms it so that every place not just the church sanctuary every place has the potential every table is communing every cup is celebrating every day becomes the possibility of sacredness.
Mhm.
Yeah. I I like it, man. I think too it reminds me of like a similar thought within um like some streams of Buddhism, particularly I'm drawing here on on Ticknot Han, who I've read a significant um amount of his work, but he'll talk about >> evangelical of you.
>> Exactly.
>> How did how did I know that was coming?
>> That was like Yeah. you so you like leave you do the Buddhist thing and then you kind of you know read Richard Roar or something. Um but um uh anyway he has the he has this bit about like mindful like mindfulness obviously but mindful drinking. So like you know you have your your cup of ale um and if you look deep enough into the cup you can actually see the universe is contained within the cup because you can see the field uh that the grain grew in and the sun that shined on that field and the rain that fell and the farmer who picked the grain and the you know the people who then brewed the beer and you know all of that. So like it's all contained like the universe is contained within a glass. Um, and I think there's something like holy and sacred about that as well, especially once we talk about interconnectedness, interrelatedness of all things, >> uh, this kind of thing. So, >> deep resonance, a different tradition. Yeah.
>> This past year at beer camp, uh, the word wasn't imshed. There was a positive version of it. And trip, what was the we talked about it after beer camp entanglement.
Yes, it was. That was my takeaway was that God is entangled in this whole damn thing.
>> Mhm. I like it.
>> All right, let's do one more question.
>> I'll let you pick the number.
>> 16. All right. That's exactly what I was thinking. Or Josh is just going to pick one and pretend to a 16.
>> Okay.
>> All right. Number 16.
uh who is a person that's not a theologian or an author but just like a I guess a regular person who has shaped your faith the most.
So, um, I I got a number of them that come to mind, but, uh, there's a couple at the church I worked at in Los Angeles, uh, named Sam and Lois Bloom, who, um, one of their, they lost one of their sons to suicide.
And you I remember being told the story the first time and I can't think of something more painful than losing a child that way.
Um, and hearing how through the grieving process, like they ended up drawing closer to each other and God, and then they started uh a a group that ran for I mean it was running 20ome years. um a grief group for people that you know, not just people from our congregation, but anyone in the community and stuff that face similar kinds of situations of intense grief. Um and and they just kind of faithfully hosted it and like hundreds of people went through it over the course of their, you know, lives until their health and stuff went downhill and couldn't do it. And um the volume of people who in the midst of it experienced a community of care that allowed them to be present with their grief and not be abandoned to it.
and that the community facilitated a kind of space where God was able to meet people in it and knowing, you know, as a clergy how so often those deep experiences of grief have multiple generations of pain brought into a family when you're not able to to kind of process it and stuff.
You think hundreds of people went through this in 20ome years of facilitating it and all of those families have a different future because >> Sam and Lois were faithful to that group that people went in and out of, you know, over all that time.
But when you're able to kind of renarrate your family and life story after a deep grief like that and I mean they are kind of like the archetype in my head of like wounded healer type you know that imagery >> isn't it Parker Palmer that wrote the >> uh I think >> or Henry Nen yeah will be one of them.
Um uh but the to me that like I mean all those things were beautiful and then you know we moved with a six-month-old to Los Angeles with no family around and they became like the honorary grandparents >> of Alicia and I and loved our kids.
Well, the first two because they were, you know, Haven came later, but um yeah, there like we experienced it just as like having honorary grandparents, but then the longer I was there, the more families whose world was completely different because they made that space.
>> Wow. Um I'll give a positive and a negative answer.
>> All right.
In the early 2000s, I joined a philosophy book club and uh I was the only sort of true believer in there.
There was one other guy who was on his way out of faith at the time, but everyone else was non-believers. They It's not that they had grown up religious and left it. They had never been religious. Mhm.
>> They helped me learn to think in such powerful and creative ways. But they also helped me to understand, you know, cuz I had been told like if somebody's an atheist, they have no morality. Like if if you're not doing something out of fear of God, like then you would just do what's best for yourself. So I learned a lot from them and you know their alternative moralities. they didn't always work but neither did my Christianity. So you know um but those guys helped me so much. In fact I tell stories from that group to this day. So for instance um in the academy when we talk about um standpoint epistemology, one of the examples that I use is I met this guy named Tori at a coffee shop and he was explaining to me sampling rates.
And this has become one of the framing analogies of my life is Josh, if you lived in a cave and you stuck your head up above ground every 24 hours, how would you think the world works?
>> Now, what if you stuck your head up above the ground every 12 hours? How would you think the universe works?
Right? But what if you stuck your head up every nine hours, >> right? What would your sample rate now?
What if you stuck it your head up every three hours you peaked up to see? Right?
So depending on your sample rate, it can greatly influence how you think patterns work and things were organized and what's going on in the world and how bright it is and how dark it is and all that sort of stuff. So he was trying to explain to me sample rates for records, recording records, like musical records, but it totally changed the way I thought about people's experiences of the world. So that's just like that group has so deeply impacted me and they had read stuff I had never read like David Foster Wallace and um you know just all sorts of stuff uh Barkowski, Chuck Bowski and just stuff I never you know read and they would just it was like us quoting theologians like they just were so familiar with contemporary literature. It it really did impact me. The the only other person I think I should name is Ferocitical Christians.
Um they really help me keep out of the rut on either side of the road with what I don't want to be. And I know you never want to define yourself by what you're not, but ferocical Christians really do help me. They're like a warning sign, a flashing sign on either side of the road to steer clear of these ditches.
Yeah. No, it's good. I mean, and I think to your to your point about that, that's another reason I still think using God language and playing within the realms of Christianity, etc., is important is because like if this is going to be again arrogant, but if like all the people that I thought like do Christianity well bailed because of all the people who suck at it, then only the shitty version would be left. And like the like lang religious language, the concept of God, all of it is is very powerful and like carries weight in the world. Look at what Christian nationalism is doing. Um so like I don't want those people to get to have the last say.
>> So like doing a better version uh of that I think is important.
>> Yeah. Um, but I think similarly for me, I was also reminded of like people who like there was a dude named Sunny at the first church that I worked at where I was a teaching pastor and had like all my negative experiences. He was definitely one of the highlights. um like he was like the backbone volunteer and like he didn't have any theological takes or opinions like he gave what he had always he always showed up he was always a good friend um and like I think of people like him participating within these like church communities without any of the kind of like things that I get hung up on and asking me like, "Oh, well, I have to know if, you know, God is omnipotent or not before I can show up and participate within this, you know, community." Sunny doesn't care about that. He just shows up and does it and like enacts love regardless. And like that's inspiring to me. Um, and so I think of people like Sunny or there was a a you know leader in um the youth group at Senica Creek who I love dearly uh named Mike who like was constantly learning, always trying to ask questions even if he didn't understand, even if it confused him. Um and then he would like still go and like love and serve well anyway. So, those are the kind of people that I think of um >> that have shaped my faith that helped get me out of my head and into the kind of embodied um you know, existence or whatever.
>> Yeah. Something something you said um made me think of the old Groucho Marks line, I would never be a part of a club that would have me as a member. And uh what it what it made me think of is when I work with churches like as a consultant who have been through crisis or conflict, one of the realizations that's been difficult for me to come to is all the people with soft hearts have already left.
>> And the ones who are left behind are tougher cookies or they're the meanies.
They're the bullies. Yeah. and uh or they're just well adapted to dysfunction and they have coping mechanisms. So, I've had to recalibrate who's in the room to begin the conversation because you have to filter all that initial data that's going to come and um yeah.
>> Awesome.
Well, that was fun.
>> No, it was fun. And there's only 27 more questions.
>> I'm just glad that I remembered why I was like, Josh, you should come on.
So, if you're one of the people that listens later and aren't, you know, at peak perfection in the chat about the alternown, you can send emails with ideas.
>> Hey, I won't I won't sing the song, but I have to tell you guys this funny story.
>> Why not? Wednesday afternoon, you'll see in a minute. Wednesday afternoon, we had our worship planning meeting for my contemporary worship service that I get to facilitate. They have given me these amazing musicians, but um two of them are from Brazil and they in Brazil you charismatic evangelicalism, right? It's just so resonant with with my experience that we got after the meeting was over, we got comparing notes and then they had to go to a different meeting and as they were leaving, one of the singers jokingly sang this song that they used to sing and I sort of joined in and it was like a a moment of us saying like, "Oh my gosh, do you remember this song?"
So he goes to his next meeting and that damn song got stuck in my head and I only know two lines from it. So I sang the same two lines for 24 hours. That stupid thing was like an earworm that got stuck in my head. Now, the funny thing is because of the way my brain works, when I don't know actual lyrics, my brain will supplement in possible fillers that have the same amount of syllables.
So, I'm going to sing you the benediction today. Okay. Uh oh.
You ready?
God is jealous for me. Floats like a butterfly. Stings like a bee. I'll see you in Vajala, brother.
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